“American Police Force” to manage Hardin Montana prison

BILLINGS, Mont. — The Two Rivers Detention Center was promoted as the largest economic development project in decades in the small town of Hardin when the jail was built two years ago. But it has been vacant ever since.

Did I hear correctly? The spokesman for American Police Force said that they were interested in using the facility as a training center? Makes sense I guess, considering the possibility of ties to Darth Chainey and the shadow government.

City officials have searched from Vermont to Alaska for inmate contracts to fill the jail, only to be turned down at every turn and see the bonds that financed its construction fall into default. They even floated the idea of housing prisoners from Guantanamo Bay at the jail.

So when Hardin officials announced this week that they had signed a deal with a California company to fill the empty jail, it was naturally a cause for celebration. Town officials talked about throwing a party to mark the occasion, their dreams of economic salvation a step closer to being realized.

Government contract databases show no record of the company. Security industry representatives and federal officials said they had never heard of it. On its Web site, the company lists as its headquarters a building in Washington near the White House that holds “virtual offices.” A spokeswoman for the building said American Police Force never completed its application to use the address.

And it’s unclear where the company will get the inmates for the jail. Montana says it’s not sending inmates to the jail, and neither are federal officials in the state.

An attorney for American Police Force, Maziar Mafi, describes the Santa Ana, Calif., company as a fledgling spin-off of a major security firm founded in 1984. But Mafi declined to name the parent firm or provide details on how the company will finance its jail operations.

“It will gradually be more clear as things go along,” said Mafi, a personal injury and medical malpractice lawyer in Santa Ana who was only hired by American Police Force a month ago. “The nature of this entity is private security and for security purposes, as well as for the interest of their clientele, that’s why they prefer not to be upfront.”

On its elaborate Web site and in interviews with company representatives, American Police Force claims to sell assault rifles and other weapons in Afghanistan on behalf of the U.S. military while providing security, investigative work and other services to clients “in all 50 states and most countries.”

The company also boasts to have “rapid response units awaiting our orders worldwide” and that it can field a battalion-sized team of special forces soldiers “within 72 hours.”

Representatives of American Police Force said the company presently employs at least 16 and as many as 28 people in the United States and 1,600 contractors worldwide.

“As it stands now the Big Horn County Sheriff’s Department is contracted to patrol the city and APF has no jurisdiction. If that was changed Peterson says it would have to go through the city council.”

“I am also told by a reliable source that today one of the managers at a local business in Hardin was visited by this new private security force which is now the new Hardin Police Department. He is an avid hunter and they came to inform him that they had a list of all fire arms that he owned; this includes all the residents of our town, and that he would need to take his guns down to have them put a marking device on them.”

Cheney is no longer in politics. get a life. jeez.
lets focus on what this prison area will be used for and who runs it. a few years back there was a prison built near Oklahoma city, and they employed foreign guards, some from Australia. I met a guy that did time there for a gun crime, and described the foreign guards.

Really?? Well, you may want to read this article and then use your brain to THINK about it… btw- the following article was published on 9-1-09 ( I would say that is fairly recent) AND, here are several articles about Cheney and one that says he may run in 2012: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/dick-cheney/

“When he was vice president, Dick Cheney got his way by secretly wielding the instruments of power. Now that he’s no longer in government, Cheney is still pulling levers and pushing buttons – he’s just doing it in plain view. And it’s the media that he’s manipulating.

After years of speaking in whispers, operating by proxy, and leaving as few fingerprints as possible, Cheney has figured out that he can say pretty much anything he wants, the networks will show it on TV, and the newspapers will dutifully print it. And best of all, they will fail to put it in any context whatsoever.

The first bit of context for any Cheney comment, of course, is that he is a monstrous liar. News articles about Cheney should routinely reminded readers of some of the things he said in the run-up to war in Iraq. Like, for instance: “Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.” By any reasonable standard, this man’s credibility was shot a long time ago.

Cheney’s latest coup is to get the media to obediently recount what Rachel L. Swarns of the New York Times so naively and euphemistically called his “forceful defense of the full range of interrogation techniques used by intelligence officers.”

In an interview with beyond-obsequious Fox News anchor Chris Wallace that aired on Sunday, Cheney once again alleged that what he calls “enhanced interrogation tactics” saved “thousands of lives and let us defeat all further attacks against the United States.”

You tellum SQ, I stutter. These paramilitary dudes are from Serbia and no doubt have ties to the US corporate government that pulled the strings during the George Duhhbya Bu$h administration. The same government that still does…G:

BILLINGS, Mont. — Michael Hilton pitched himself to officials in Hardin, Mont. as a military veteran turned private sector entrepreneur, a California defense contractor with extensive government contracts who promised to turn the rural city’s empty jail into a cash cow.

Hardin’s leaders were desperate to fill the $27 million jail, which has sat empty since its 2007 completion.

So when Hilton came to town last week — wearing a military-style uniform and offering three Mercedes SUVs for use by local law enforcement — he was greeted with hugs by some grateful residents. The promise of more than 200 new jobs for a community struggling long before the recession hit had won them over.

But public documents and interviews with Hilton’s associates and legal adversaries offer a different picture, that of a convicted felon with a number of aliases, a string of legal judgments against him, two bankruptcies and a decades-long reputation for deals gone bad.

American Police Force is the company Hilton formed in March to take over the Hardin jail.

“Such schemes you cannot believe,” said Joseph Carella, an Orange County, Calif. doctor and co-defendant with Hilton in a real estate fraud case that resulted in a civil judgment against Hilton and several others.

“The guy’s brilliant. If he had been able to do honest work, he probably would have been a gazillionaire,” Carella said.

Court documents show Hilton has outstanding judgments against him in three civil cases totaling more than $1.1 million.

As for Hilton’s military expertise, including his claim to have advised forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, those interviewed knew of no such feats. Instead, Hilton was described alternately by those who know him as an arts dealer, cook, restaurant owner, land developer, loan broker and car salesman — always with a moneymaking scheme in the works.

When asked about court records detailing Hilton’s past, Shay replied, “The documents speak for themselves. If anyone has found public documents, the documents are what they are.”

Shay declined comment on Hilton’s military experience.

Al Peterson, vice president of Hardin’s Two Rivers Authority, which built the jail, declined to comment on Hilton’s legal troubles. He refused to say if he knew about Hilton’s past when the authority reached a 10-year agreement with American Police Force last month.

The deal is worth more than $2.6 million a year, according to city leaders.

Hilton has also pledged to build a $17 million military and law enforcement training center. And he’s promised to dispatch security to patrol Hardin’s streets, build an animal shelter and a homeless shelter and offer free health care to city resident’s out of the jail’s clinic.

Those additional promises were not included in the jail agreement, which remains in limbo because US Bank has so far declined to sign off on the contract. The bank is the trustee for the bonds used to fund the jail.

A US Bank spokeswoman declined to comment, but Peterson was adamant the deal would be approved.

“It’s a solid deal. That’s all I’ll say,” he said.

But a representative of a corrections advocacy group that has been critical of Hardin’s jail and has investigated Hilton’s past said city leaders dropped the ball.

“I’m amazed that city officials didn’t do basic research that would have raised significant questions about American Private Police Force and Mr. Hilton’s background,” said Alex Friedmann, vice president of the Private Corrections Institute.

Hilton, 55, uses the title “captain” when introducing himself and on his business cards. But he acknowledged it was not a military rank.

He said he is naturalized U.S. citizen and native of Montenegro. Aliases for Hilton that appear in court documents include Miodrag Dokovich, Michael Hamilton, Hristian Djokich and Michael Djokovich.

One attorney who dealt with Hilton in a fraud lawsuit referred to him as a “chameleon” and he has a reputation for winning people over with his charm.

His criminal record goes back to at least 1988, when Hilton was arrested in Santa Ana, Calif. for writing bad checks.

Beginning in 1993, Hilton spent six years in prison in California on a dozen counts of grand theft and other charges including illegal diversion of construction funds.

The charges included stealing $20,000 in a real estate swindle in which Hilton convinced an associate to give him a deed on property in Long Beach, Calif., ostensibly as collateral on a loan. Hilton turned around and sold the property to another party but was caught when the buyer contacted the original owner.

After his release, he got entangled in at least three civil lawsuits alleging fraud or misrepresentation. Those included luring investors to sink money into gold and silver collectible coins; posing as a fine arts dealer in Utah in order to convince a co uple to give him a $100,000 silver statue; and, in the case involving co-defendant Carella, seeking investors for an assisted living complex in Southern California that was never built.

Carella said he was duped into becoming a partner in the development project and that Hilton used Carella’s status as a physician to lure others into the scheme. He was described in court testimony as a “pawn” used by Hilton to lure investors.

Those involved with Hilton say he is an accomplished cook with a flair for the extravagant — wining and dining potential partners, showing up at the Utah couple’s house to negotiate for the silver statue in a chauffeur-driven Mercedes.

“This is the way we got taken,” said Carolyn Call of Provo, Utah, who said she gave Hilton her family’s silver statue to sell on the open market.

According to court documents, Hilton turned around and gave the statue to an attorney to pay for his services.

Two California attorneys said Wednesday that after learning of Hilton’s latest activities they planned to follow him to Montana to seek payment on the outstanding judgments against him.

“Once I know that there is an asset or some sort of funds to go after, we’ll go after it,” said Call’s attorney, Roger Naghash.

Associated Press writers Amy Taxin in Santa Ana and Greg Risling in Los Angeles and researcher Barbara Sambriski in New York contributed to this story.

Okay, folks, how about sticking with the here and now. You have a 27 million dollar prison built in the middle of nowhere (no offense the the people of Hardin, Montana, I am only speaking geographically). The town went way into debt to build this thing, so they had to be expecting some kind of big time deal to have prisoners sent there. Who would have given them that impression? Next, you have a company whose logo features a Serbian crest, parading into town in mercedes SUVs and pretending to be the town’s new police force. From that point things start to get a bit fuzzy, with all of the rumors and such coming across the web.

And all of this adds up to Bush and Cheney? Helllllloooooooo? Anybody been watching the antics of our current shadow government (f-you if you think that’s a racist comment)? Pop quiz – who said the following: “We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.” HINT – it wasn’t Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Gates. No, twas Barack Obama.

When are you going to stop the “Bush did it” b.s. and start taking some responsibility for the actions of the current resident of the White House? He consorts with and surrounds himself with a rogues gallery of communists (Van Jones, self proclaimed), socialists, eugenicists (look it up, I know it’s a really tough word, climate change fanatics and outright thugs. But that’s all okay, ’cause he’s your totalitarian, right? If shadow governments and violations of our civil liberties was wrong under Bush (which it was) then they are just as bad under Obama.

I know, I know, the usual response from you will be, as always – SHUT UP.

TimDavid (not hiding behind a nickname): “If shadow governments and violations of our civil liberties was wrong under Bush (which it was) then they are just as bad under Obama.”

On this I agree, but we can do nothing in the here and now untill the George Duhhbya Bu$h administration is held accountable for their crimes against humanity. They have served the shadow government well,while Obama has somewhat went against their grain. If Obama could use his political capitol like Duhhbya appeared to do, there would be hell to pay for these corporate crooks, but the shadow government still controls things like they have for generations…G:

I don’t need a nickname either, and I totally support every word that TimDavid said.
Wordgeezer really displays the idiot that he is with his “Bush Administration Crimes against Humanity” bs. Wake up and listen to the music, and realize what the new administration is doing. This is the most corrupt administration I have ever seen, and I can go back about 10 of them.

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